Returning The Favor
by JalendaviLady
Summary: Fury wasn't exactly telling the truth... DO NOT read this if you have not watched the film.


Returning The Favor

by JalendaviLady

Characters: Phil Coulson, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner

Summary: Fury wasn't exactly telling the truth... DO NOT read this if you have not watched the film.

* * *

He couldn't lift his arms.

That was the first thing he noticed, followed swiftly by everything he'd unconsciously been trying to reach with his hands: the itch of a catheter, the feel of an IV in a hand, something that could only be a tube in his nose, and an oppressive thickness in his throat that he eventually realized was a ventilator tube.

That was immediately followed in his awareness by the soreness and pain in his chest that ebbed and spiked with each not-optional ventilator-forced breath.

He was barely strong enough to slit his eyes open enough to catch that the room was white walled and brightly lit.

He tried to mumble, "Where?" but couldn't manage more than an ineffectual half-grunt.

A hand slipped into his left and another ran over his hair with gentle long strokes. "Shh."

He knew the voice from somewhere, but couldn't place it. He knew he'd never heard it with those tones before.

A little squeeze of his hand, with clear restraint behind it.

"Just relax, Agent," Stark's voice said from somewhat too far away to the right for the hands to be his. "Loki's off to face whatever punishment Asgard can dream up and we foiled the invasion plan. I hacked the SHIELD agent HR server, Bruce crunched the numbers, Steve checked the employee policy manual, and you've got more than enough vacation time racked up to heal as slowly as you feel like and departmental policies that say you're allowed to use vacation time to do just that. And considering Fury told all of us you were dead, I think he knows he'll have at least three Avengers after him if you're back on duty before _ we _ decide you're ready for it, five if Clint and Nat are back before he takes you back off duty again, and six whenever Thor comes back."

He felt tension release he didn't know he'd been holding in.

"That's it," a voice he'd heard in historical archive footage so often he heard it in his dreams said to his left. "Stand-down, Phil, for now at least. You've been out for almost two weeks, likely will be on bedrest for another two _ at minimum_. And someone _ has _ to help me figure out which movies are worth watching, because if Fury ever runs another debriefing with that many references to things I wasn't awake for I swear..."

_ That _ got his eyes open.

Steve Rogers was sitting at his bedside - _ his bedside! _ - wearing civilian clothing and grinning at him.

Tears welled up.

"Tony, what was that Pepper told us about these drugs and emotional control?"

"You mean that they'd turn even Hulk into the municipal waterworks?"

"That would be it, yes." And then there was a handkerchief dabbing at his face. "This is fine," Steve told him in a low and steady voice. "Weeping's to be expected. It's no shame. And someone has to help you, since you'd pull things out that shouldn't be removed if we let you use your hands right now."

When he'd finally quieted down again, Phil looked up at him in confusion. Why was he doing this? Why were both of them doing this?

"We're walking science experiments," Tony told him as if he understood. "Both of us. Steve because of the serum, me because of the reactor in my chest. Do you honestly think anyone would have tried _ anything _ abusive or degrading, no matter how good the research rationale sounded, while you were in the room watching over him? Even things that would leave no signs, stuff he would never have a _ clue _ even happened unless I hacked SHIELD's servers and told him about it?"

He managed to shake his head a little.

"Well, for guys like us that _ matters _ . So of course we'd do the same for you." Phil closed his eyes again. "Granted, the probability is a lot lower, but you _ were _ stabbed in the chest with an alien artifact of unclear origin, so..."

"Tony, I think he's trying to fall asleep again."

"All right. Phil, we need you to tell us something. You are not on the maximum dose of pain medication you're allowed, but the less you take the less jarring the side effects will be and the lower the addiction risk. Is your current pain level _ bearable _ ?"

He had to think about it. Could he fall asleep properly like this?

"You're having to think about it," Tony said flatly.

Phil nodded a little.

"Okay, I'm twitching it up a little bit. They've got limits on this thing so we can't get to the maximum dose without medical permission or increase it by much per hour at a time without someone coming down here and giving me a speech about patient care outcomes, but increasing the drip rate just a touch... there. Should have about as much additional effect as a regular OTC pain reliever."

The pain of breathing eased.

"Oh yeah, you needed that. Just so you know, you shouldn't need the ventilator for much longer. They just wanted your lung and chest wall to have a break while they were healing, and making sure you were breathing evenly without effort was as close as anyone could manage." Stark's voice was shaking. "And most of the rest is either to manage the pain or because the ventilator won't let you get up or have anything by mouth, okay?"

He managed a nod.

"Tony, let him sleep."

"Steve, we have different primal fears. Yours is waking up and not knowing how long you've been out. Bruce's don't exactly apply here. Mine is waking up and finding out I've got a car battery wired to me from a medical experiment I didn't sign up for, okay?" His voice edged higher in pitch with every word. "And since we have no clue what _ Phil's _ are..."

A door swung open nearby. "Might as well cover all the bases?"

Phil stiffened. Steve squeezed his hand.

"It's okay, I've got better control than most people realize. The incident on the helicarrier only happened because of the explosion and then it was compounded because the space was just too small for him. And the other guy'd never met anyone in SHIELD under good circumstances, so he, ah... he felt like he was in hostile territory and reacted. When the transformation's voluntary, I can consciously pass him information and it isn't as distressing for either of us, so he can actually find out who is enemy and who is not."

"He's had controlled extended introductions to the other Avengers since the battle," Tony reported. "Fury's considering extending that to the rest of the staff, so once you get better it'll probably be time to make sure he sees you as a friend instead of an enemy."

Phil couldn't even try to open his eyes now.

"I know that look," Bruce said. "Leave him alone and let him sleep."

"You're kicking me out of a room in my own building?"

"Me or him, pick one."

"You wouldn't."

"Ten foot ceiling, twenty feet or more between load bearing walls, and he doesn't have to fit through the door to throw you out it."

"Damn it."

Two sets of footsteps leaving.

A squeeze of his hand. "I'll stay for a while. We've been trying to keep someone here with you at all times."

Phil drifted off to a half-sung half-hummed rendition of "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" and the thought he wouldn't have ever believed he would someday be _ sung to sleep _ by _ Captain America _ even just last year.

* * *

It wasn't until two weeks later, when Tony steered him into the elevator while he was walking around with the IV pole for a cane, that Phil realized he hadn't processed the entire conversation.

Well, it was less the steering into the elevator, and more the coming out onto the half-renovated top floor of Stark Tower with the view and the really big screen and the genuine movie-theater popcorn machine and Steve Rogers sitting on a sofa scrolling through the menu to Tony's personal movie collection.

Complete with little colored Xs next to some of them.

"JARVIS went through all our psych profiles," Tony told him, "and put warning marks on anything he thinks might contain PTSD triggers for us. Down to telling me which MASH episodes have cave scenes. Steve's are the blue, mine are the red. Anything else is game. Where do you think we should start? Go by eras or go by genres?"

He blinked and thought for a moment. "Start with representations of the times he knows in film. Not the war movies but _ A League Of Our Own_, things like that. And New York City - maybe early Scorsese, _ Gangs of New York _ - but there's gunfire in most of those somewhere. Oh, _ Titanic_, since most of the references to the sinking these days are really about the movie."

"Too long, you've got a curfew."

Phil sat down in one of the chairs and leaned back. "_Head. Of. State._ "

Tony broke down and bent over laughing.

"What kind of movie is _ Head Of State_?"

"The kind where Nat needs to be here when you see it," Tony sputtered out.

"_Lion King. _ No cultural references in the film, no gunshots, no caves, and just about everyone over the age of seven is presumed to have seen it at least once." He looked around. "Where's Pepper?"

"We managed to acquire a property upstate. Large acreage, heavy woodland at the edges within the property lines, few neighbors. She and Bruce have gone to check it out as a place to let the other guy out occasionally without risk to property or people. And yes, Fury knows what they're up to."

"And if that doesn't work out for the Hulk?"

"Sparring ground for the rest of us," Steve told him.

"Can't be charged with destruction of property when you own the property."

"Shouldn't we save anything with Zazu in it until she's here?"

Tony thought for a moment. "Point. And how come you're the one cracking jokes when you're usually the stuffy guy in a suit?"

"You said it yourself: I'm on vacation officially." He lifted the IV line. "Can't fit the suit jacket over this, can I?" He crossed his arms. "And just for that - JARVIS, any predicted issues with _Men In Black_?"

Tony was still giggling and Steve was asking what was so funny when the lights dimmed and JARVIS started the movie.


End file.
